Dinosaurs

Last night we stayed in Vernal, UT. It is 20 miles outside Dinosaur National Monument. But you'd never know it. Nearly half the businesses in town didn't even mention dino, dinosaur, fossil, or bones in their business name. Some businesses didn't even have dinosaur statues out front, or on their signs. In a gift shop attached to the restaurant where we had breakfast, they had t-shirts, figurines, glasses, and stuffed animals that were NOT dinosaur related. But you had to look for them.
What they had, were flowers. The city plants flowers all along every business street, every 30-50 feet or so. Beautiful. It looks like spring. Huh. What do you suppose Vernal means in, say, Latin?
Okay. Dinosaur National Monument. WOW! WOWSA! WOW!
Over 400 individual dinosaurs were buried in mud along about 400 yards of ancient river bed, 149 million years ago. Exactly. About 50 yards of the mudstone and fossils are on display in a big glass building. They are partially exposed. The mudstone is now at a 60 degree angle, having been uplifted 50 million years ago, along with the rest of the Rockies. I tried to imagine how excited the discoverer must have been when he realized what he had found. Besides a lifetime of job security. Here it is more than 100 years later, and people (note the use of the plural form) are still spending careers working with these fossils. And semi-bored park rangers are just glad to have jobs. To be fair, they did perk up if you asked interested, intelligent questions. Or, I think they would have, if I had come up with one.
Then we headed south. Deer and antelope play here, but no buffaloes (bison) that we saw. Magpies, ravens, and a variety of hawks and falcons fly hither and yon.
Tonight we are in Clifton, near Grand Junction. We will make it to Cortez tomorrow. Unless we don't.